In his last State of the Union speech before the November election, President Obama defended his record addressing the financial crisis and called for greater economic fairness. He warned that Wall Street would no longer be allowed to play by its own set of rules. But the bulk of the speech dealt with the economy. We get reaction from Jared Bernstein, former chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and past member of...

Amid ongoing U.S.-Pakistani tensions and fears of a military coup in Pakistan, we are joined by British-Pakistani political commentator, historian, activist, filmmaker and novelist, Tariq Ali. Ali discusses Pakistan’s internal turmoil, as well as Pakistani attitudes toward U.S. foreign policy, the GOP presidential contest, and the prospect of a military strike against Iran. "[Pakistanis] are basically suffering because Obama,...

We speak with reporter Michael Hastings about the "disastrous past year" in Afghanistan and the mentality a decade of war has bred there. The U.S. has "funneled billions of dollars in weapons and training into a chaotic place like Afghanistan, training these young guys to kill people, and then are shocked when they see the results," Hastings says of the outcry that followed last week’s appearance of a video showing...

Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings was with WikiLeaks founder and editor-in-chief Julian Assange when the pretrial military hearing for accused Army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning was taking place in Fort Meade, Maryland, last month. Hastings says the military’s case against Manning, coupled with President Obama’s recent authorization of a measure expanding indefinite detention anywhere in the world in the National...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges has filed suit against President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes controversial provisions authorizing the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world, without charge or trial. Sections of the bill are written so broadly that critics say they could encompass journalists...

Ten years ago, Omar Deghayes and Morris Davis would have struck anyone as an odd pair. While they have never met, they now share a profound connection, cemented through their time at the notorious U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Iran says a nuclear scientist involved in its uranium enrichment program was killed by assassins in Tehran on Wednesday, becoming the latest Iranian scientist to die in a series of similar incidents. Earlier this week, Iran announced it had sentenced a U.S.-born man to death for allegedly spying for the CIA. Meanwhile, the United States is leading a global campaign to shut down Iranian oil exports in order to pressure the country to end its...

Detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay launched a hunger strike today marking the prison’s 10th anniversary, inspired in part by U.S. activists who have called for a national day of action. "They will be staging a series of peaceful protests that will involve sit-ins with signs and banners in the part of the prison that has communal areas, as well as hunger strikes," says Ramzi Kassem, counsel to a number of...

On the 10th anniversary of when the United States began detaining terror suspects at its Guantánamo Bay military base in Cuba, we speak with a former prisoner and the ex-chief U.S. prosecutor, who both call for the Obama administration to close the base. "People are locked up in isolation camps... People lost their hands, lost their eyes, lost their limbs," says Omar Deghayes, who was arrested in Pakistan as a terror suspect and held...